Weekly Highlights from our Conservative Overlords

Monday, June 27, 2011

I'm sure nothing will come of it, but it's been announced that the RCMP is looking in to complaints on G8 spending. Which probably means that somebody at the RCMP read something about it on the Internet. What bothers me the most is John Baird's outright dismissal here, calling it a "public relations stunt". I'm sick and tired of these yabbos blaming everything on the person asking the question. That's actually the opposite of accountibility.

Canada continues to embarrass itself byofficially denying a UN declaration of asbestos as hazardous. And since the declaration has to be unanimous, there will therefore be no declaration of Asbestos as hazardous by the UN. And we complain when China or Russia step in and derail things with their Security Council vote. Even India, Vietnam, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan came around to changing their stance on this item. Actually, this probably opens up some Harper spin. "Canada Valiantly Opposes Baltic/Near East Asbestos Denial Axis at UN Summit". (In the end, the axis joined up with Canada. But I'm not writing a whole new paragraph just for that.) Add this to the lengthening list of "Strange Stephen Harper Obsessions."

And another case of "this is the truth because I say so." The Conservatives call the investigation of detainee abuse in Afghanistan closed because nothing in their redacted documents indicates that anything happened. Missing from the records...anything deemed legal advice or related to cabinet confidence. It would seem to me that any important discussion would probably be related to one of these two things.

First up, we have an eyewitness account from the riot from the Tyee. While most of the coverage has focussed on the "hooligans" that caused things and how well the police did to contain everything, this talks about how disjointed and odd the police response was to those in the crowd. I'm especially interested on his description on how difficult it was to try to leave the downtown core. Very odd indeed. To kind of add to this theme, I had the opportunity to drive through downtown last night, 24 hours after the riot. I can appreciate that an incredible amount of effort went in to cleaning things up, but I was surprised by just how localized some of the damage was. Hudson Bay - trashed. Bank across the street - untouched. There's a similarly interesting Huffington Post eyewitnees account and Gary Mason - shockingly - has a similar, non-ridiculous point of view. And the Straight.

Since we've been so focused on riots and hockey for the past couple of weeks, I wouldn't be surprised if we find out that Stephen Harper has been busy as the cameras have been trained elsewhere. Maybe he signed over Quebec to the USA? Or banned gay people from existing? Seems like the right time for him to try such a bold move.

Monday, June 13, 2011

So, Canada has decided to pledge 5-million dollars to fight drug crime in Central/Latin America. And Canada goes on to say that radical suggestions like legalizing drugs won't be the answer. I guess it's alright for Mexicans and Columbians to kill themselves to feed North American drug habits...but we shouldn't consider radical changes because there's "a lot of red flags about moving in that direction." As well "many in law enforcement, many crime fighters, have serious reservations about going that route." Yes. Because they are all impartial on that argument.

And here we have praise for Harper "following his convictions" on Israel, even at the expense of votes and international support. What a thing to admire in a national leader. Ignoring the general will of the country/world and following your own convictions.

As well, we have the Conservatives dropping hints of new things to come out of their next policy convention. We'll have the Omar Kadhr Rule, whereby you'll lose your citizenship if you're accused of high treason. How will that work? Seems like a bit of a catch-22 if the government that you hope will support you in your defense walks away before you can formulate a defense. As well, rumblings about explicit rejection of euthanasia and a "severe crackdown" on prostitution, in order to "declare that human beings are not objects to be enslaved, bought and sold." Ya, forcing prostitution further underground is going to dramatically improve things for those that are enslaved. And why are the religious right so concerned about somebody ending their own pain and suffering?

Moving along, Chuck Strahl pen's a ridiculous piece of tripe posing as "advice to my son, the new MP". I guess the Globe and Mail is hard up for content. Let's read between the lines:"you made a decision to run for office" - I retired after getting my full pension so that you could have an easy seat while the getting was good"charted a course" - did exactly what I did"worked hard" - avoided debates and towed the party line"and got yourself elected" - because even a coat rack could have gotten itself elected as the Conservative candidate in this ridingAnd that's just the first sentence!

Building on that, the Conservatives are going to start adding seats in the areas where they are strongest. I'm all for distribution of Parliament seats based on where the population actually is, but I'd like to think that it is more scientific than this. As the article points out, there is already an automatic redistribution initiated by the census. So why is this required? Why would you make this announcement before seeing the results of the census? How can you make these decisions without having the most up-to-date information? It's pure speculation at this point. At least this explains the decision to scrap the mandatory long form census. Why bother if you're not going to use the information? On a side note, we completed our census form a few weeks back. I was kind of hoping to volunteer to fill out the long form census, as a form of protest. But we couldn't figure out a way to do that. I guess the only way to non-mandatorily participate is if you are non-mandatorily selected to voluntarily fill it out.

Lastly, the Throne Speech happened. There were no real surprises...but most of those probably won't come out for a year or two. Say goodbye to the long-gun registry, vote subsidies and Canadian Wheat Board Monopolies (not sure if that is good or bad). Say hello to longer prison terms and harsher punishment, as well as "shared border security" with the US, Alright Canada! Way to pave your own way!

Worst of all...and honestly, this is one of my biggest problems with the Conservative Government...Copyright Reform. US Copyright Reform is a failure. We are letting the same companies that pushed that crap on the US write our legislation. Internet "piracy" has caused problems for many dinosaur entertainment companies. But look at the explosion in concert revenues. Look at the explosion in independent music. Past bills have ignored feedback from artists groups and consumers and focussed on a bunch of near-criminal music companies that robbed us for years and years. I fear that with a majority there will be no consultation. It could be grim. Three strikes? Criminalization of digital lock breaking? Who knows. It won't be good. And it really won't stop anything.